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GPT-4.1 vs GPT-4o Mini: Pricing, Benchmarks & Verdict (2026)

Verdict

GPT-4o Mini is significantly cheaper at $0.15/$0.60 per million tokens vs $2.00/$8.00. GPT-4.1 is stronger for coding with a coding ELO of 1320 vs 1200. GPT-4o Mini is faster at 120 tokens/sec vs 88 tokens/sec. GPT-4.1 ranks higher overall with an Arena ELO of 1290 vs 1220. GPT-4.1 offers a larger 1048K context window vs 128K.

Side-by-Side Comparison

FeatureGPT-4.1GPT-4o Mini
ProviderOpenAIOpenAI
Input Price / 1M tokens$2.00$0.150
Output Price / 1M tokens$8.00$0.600
Context Window1.047576M128K
Max Output Tokens32,76816,384
Arena ELO1,2901,220
Coding ELO1,3201,200
TTFT (ms)260180
Tokens/sec88120
MultimodalYesYes
JSON ModeYesYes
Function CallingYesYes
VisionYesYes
When to Use GPT-4.1

Choose GPT-4.1 when you need: 1m token context window, excellent coding performance, strong instruction following, competitive pricing for its capability. It excels at coding, long-context, agents, general-purpose tasks. Its 1048K context window is larger, making it better for long-document processing.

Strengths:

  • 1M token context window
  • Excellent coding performance
  • Strong instruction following
  • Competitive pricing for its capability

Best for:

codinglong-contextagentsgeneral-purpose
When to Use GPT-4o Mini

Choose GPT-4o Mini when you need: extremely affordable pricing, fast response times, strong for its price tier, good multimodal support. It excels at chatbots, lightweight-tasks, cost-sensitive tasks. It is also the more cost-effective option between the two.

Strengths:

  • Extremely affordable pricing
  • Fast response times
  • Strong for its price tier
  • Good multimodal support

Best for:

chatbotslightweight-taskscost-sensitive

Frequently Asked Questions

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